This invention relates to catalysts consisting of a porous solid carrier material the pores of which contain a catalytically active organometallic complex dissolved in a ligand-forming compound, and to the use of such catalysts, for instance, for the hydroformylation of olefinically unsaturated compounds.
Catalysts of the general type described above are described in Netherlands patent application No. 7700554, published July 24, 1978 and corresponding to U.S. application Ser. No. 870,582 to Gerritsen et al, filed Jan. 18, 1978 and now Pat. No. 4,193,942, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Although the hydroformylation by means of these catalysts offers advantages over the known homogeneous catalysis with the same organometallic complexes, there is still room for improvement on some points. The time needed for the non-activated catalyst to reach maximum activity is long in many instances. Also, with a low degree of filling of the pores these catalysts show a relatively low activity, per gram of metal present in complex form. In addition, there is some aldol condensation of the aldehydes formed in the hydroformylation.